China’s third lunar probe will blast off in the second half of 2013, the state Xinhua news agency reported late on Monday. Other reports said it would land and transmit back a survey of the moon’s surface.

If successful, the landing would be China’s first on the lunar surface and mark a new milestone in its space development. It is part of a project to orbit, land on and return from the moon, Xinhua said.

China said in its last white paper on space it was working towards landing a man on the moon, although it has not given a time frame.

China’s ambitious space program has included launching a female astronaut into space in June for the first time. Liu Yang was among the astronauts on the Shenzhou-9, which was on a mission to the Tiangong 1 module, a prototype for a future space station, according to the New York Times.

The station is expecting to be in orbit by 2020. China is testing a new rocket, a next-generation booster that will aid in the station and moon exploration, according to msnbc.com.

The new liquid oxygen (LOX) and kerosene engine is being designed for China’s planned Long March 5 rocket, which will be more powerful than the current Long March 2F rockets that have been used to launch a space lab test module and an astronaut crew on missions to test docking technologies in low-Earth orbit, according to China’s state-run Xinhua news agency.

… According to Chinese media reports, the Long March 5 rocket will be able to launch a 25-ton spacecraft or satellite into low-Earth orbit, or launch a 14-ton payload into geostationary orbit.